


The Road Home

by zungeonsandzaddies



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Glenn is trying to be a good dad dammit, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Night Driving Is Superior, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Slow Burn, i mean this is gonna be 3 chapters so not THAT slow a burn, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zungeonsandzaddies/pseuds/zungeonsandzaddies
Summary: Spoilers for Ep. 51: An Escape Plan For That ~Two years after returning from the Forgotten Realms, Glenn has decided he's going to surprise Nick by coming home for Christmas for the first time since losing Morgan.He enlists the help of Henry, who has been an incredibly supportive force in Nick's life... and a surprisingly grounding force in Glenn's life.
Relationships: Christmas Rock, Glenn Close/Henry Oak
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The Road Home

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to formally thank Glenn's profession for giving me a valid reason to write about Christmas year-round.
> 
> CW for this chapter: Glenn has PTSD, among other mental illnesses probably (gosh, wonder why?), and it manifests for brief moments throughout the chapter. It's nothing extreme, but take care of yourselves <3

55 MPH

Glenn pressed on the brake. Fucking construction. He enjoyed driving, he had to if he was going to continue touring all his life, but one of the worst parts of driving across the country was periodically hitting areas of construction and having to turn off the cruise control. 

Since the GC3 split before Faerun, Glenn was a solo artist now. He missed being in a band, it was more his vibe, but for now he was flying solo. He and Nick had decided they’d start a father & son duo, but Nick wanted to graduate from high school before he began touring around the country, and Glenn agreed to those terms. Boundary-setting, right? That’s what they were supposed to be doing now. 

Glenn glanced at the clock. 12:00AM. Right on time, the ringing of an incoming call interrupted the sweet sounds of Mannheim Steamroller blasting in the van’s speakers. Glenn answered immediately.

“Hey man, wassup!”

“Hey Dad,” Nick’s voice piped from the end of the line, “How was the show tonight?”

“Good, good. I mean, the audience energy could’ve been better, but it’s still November. Things’ll pick up by the time December rolls around.”

“Does the new tracklist work?”

“Oh hell yeah, dude, putting Auld Lang Syne toward the end was a great idea. I had one dude in fuckin’ tears, Nick!”

Nick’s delightful laugh filled the car. “Niiiice. See, I knew it’d be better at the end. You wanna finish strong.”

“You’re in charge of the tracklist once we go on the road together, deal?”

“Deal.”

“Sweet. How was the game today?”

“Oh it was fuckin’ tight, man! Grant’s really pulling his weight recently, he scored two goals! And you shoulda seen me, I was weaving in between the other team like nobody’s business, I was zig-zagging all over the field. I scored the first goal of the game, Dad!”

Glenn smiled, even as something in his chest clenched up. “Aw hell yeah, that’s fuckin’ right you scored the first goal!”

Nick’s excitement wafted through the speakers with ease. “Yeah, ha, Terry and Grant tried to lift me up on their shoulders after the game, well, because I told them to, but I guess the T is actually working because I’m gaining some muscle mass, and they couldn’t lift me, but Darryl and Henry ran out onto the field and did it instead.”

After a second, Glenn remembered to laugh. “Ah, fun. Bet Darryl was carrying most of your weight.”

“Actually, yeah, you know, now that I think about it, Henry may have just been there as back support.”

Glenn genuinely laughed at that, though the clenching feeling in his chest didn’t go away. 

Glenn passed the car in front of him. 

“Wish you were there to see it, Dad,” Nick said, his voice softer after the brief moment of silence. 

“Yeah. Me too, man,” Glenn responded. Then, in a chipper voice, said: “But honestly, I think I prefer the verbal play-by-play from you after the fact. That way I just get to hear all your highlights and don’t have to put up with all the other little fuckers stealing the attention during the game.”

Nick laughed again, and Glenn relaxed a little bit. “You have a front-row seat to my new podcast, The Doodler Recap,” Nick jabbed. 

“Do I get bonus content for being the only listener?”

“Hell no, you gotta subscribe to my Patreon for that shit.”

“Damn. My own son, tearing our relationship apart one paywall at a time.”

“You’ll get bonus content when you stop making me spend Christmases alone, dumbass.”

Glenn opened his mouth, and immediately shut it again. He wanted desperately to spill the beans that he was, in fact, planning to come home for Christmas this year. But he intended to surprise Nick on Christmas Day, so he kept his mouth shut. 

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Nah, man. Nick, it’s cool.”

Silence. The clenching in his chest returned, and Glenn almost said fuck it and told Nick they were going to spend Christmas together for the first time since Morgan… but before he could say anything, Glenn heard Nick clear his throat.

“I hate to cut this short, but I have a test tomorrow, and I don’t want to have to stay up too late studying. Henry told me it isn’t good to cram all night for a test, that it’s better to get a proper night’s sleep. So. I should probably…”

“Yeah,” Glenn replied, putting on his ‘everything’s cool’ voice, “That’s a good plan. Break a leg, remember tests are bullshit and are—”

“—fucked up ways to measure intelligence through the school system in order to groom today’s youth to be slaves to society, yeah, I know, Dad.”

Glenn nodded his head in approval, even though Nick couldn’t see it. “And don’t you fuckin’ forget it.”

“Alright, Dad. Goodnight. Text me when you get to Dallas.” 

“‘Course, Nick. Night. I lo—”

The call beeped to an end. Mannheim Steamroller started back up from where it left off, almost jolting Glenn off the road with its intensity. He turned the music off. 

65 MPH

That was more like it. Glenn stepped on the gas and clicked the cruise control back on, landing on a satisfying 73 miles per hour. 8 miles per hour over the speed limit was the perfect sweet spot on the road to Texas—it let Glenn pass most cars, but wasn’t so fast that the cops would stop him. He’d run many tests over the years and learned the most miles per hour he could get away with for every state to maximize his time. Lucky for him, speed limits increased once he got down to Texas. Glenn loved to fly through the state with little regard for the little scenery around him. 

Glenn drove in silence. The road was empty, and the closest city—if you could call an off-the-highway town in Oklahoma a city—was ten miles off the main road. Stars adorned the midnight sky, far more stars than one could see in San Dimas, California. Back when Glenn was in a band, he liked letting the other members drive at night so he could stare out at the stars. Not to think. In fact, more to empty his head. Glenn tried to look up now, but the startling vibrations of his wheels treading over the rumble strip snapped his eyes back to the road. Damn. 

Glenn drove like that for about a minute before the silence became deafening. He turned Mannheim Steamroller back on, but something about the intensity of it only made his skin crawl. He switched to his 80s playlist, but that wasn’t doing it for him either. 

Glenn scrolled to the bottom of his list of playlists. At the very bottom was his playlist entitled “Free man.” Glenn’s thumb hovered over the shuffle button. 

Maybe no music was better. Glenn drove on in silence for another minute. He shifted in his seat. Cracked open the window. Rolled up the window. 

Flashing red and blue lights up ahead to the left caught Glenn’s attention. A highway patrol car. Instinctively, Glenn slammed on the brakes, causing the car that had snuck up behind him to honk. 

The cop had stopped someone going the opposite direction. As Glenn sped by them, the cop illuminated in the headlights of his patrol car, Glenn thought he recognized the man, the dark hair, the sharp lines of his body, the way he walked—

Within seconds, the flashing lights were far behind him. Glenn took in a shaky breath. There was no way the cop would come after him, but Glenn still felt rattled. He couldn’t get the image of his son in a polo shirt out of his head. 

Glenn bumped the cruise control down to 68 miles per hour. 

Cursing under his breath, Glenn hit the call button on the dashboard. “Call Henry Oak,” he said, his own voice sounding too loud in the lonely van. 

“Calling Henry Oak,” responded the voice from his car, followed by the dial tone. 

The phone rang two times before the voice of Henry Oak sang through the speakers: “Glenn! Howdy!”

“Heya Henry,” Glenn responded, his heart still thumping in his ears from the cop incident. “Whatcha up to?”

“Oh, finally got the boys to go to bed. Well, maybe not to bed, but at least to their room. What’re you up to? Are you driving?”

“Yeah. Finished the show two hours ago.”

“How did that go?”

“Eh,” Glenn mused. He didn’t really feel like talking about himself. “It was alright. I heard the game went well today.”

“It did! You talked to Nick?”

“Mm, I did.”

“Did he tell you he scored the first goal of the game?”

“Yeah, he did.” 

“Glenn, he was awesome sauce—”

Glenn cringed at Henry’s choice of words.

“—Nick’s getting really good at weaving around the other kids. And he’s getting taller, so, you know… other teams’ players tend to try to avoid him in order to not get trampled.”

“Never thought my kid would be the tall one on the team.”

“Ha, yeah, he’s catching up to Terry Jr. Anyway, you said your show just went alright? Tell me more about it!”

“It’s the same every night, Henry,” Glenn said dismissively, “Nothing new. I’ll let you know when people actually get in the holiday spirit.”

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. You’re too good.”

Glenn couldn’t hear his own heart beating anymore, which was nice. He felt a bit calmer. “You don’t know anything about guitar, Henry.”

“Ah, but I know music. Raps album, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d never let me.”

Henry laughed. “Aw geez, you’re probably right. I’m proud of it, what can I say?”

Glenn smiled. “I miss you, Henry.” 

Henry went quiet. Shit. Should he have said that? They didn’t really talk about their feelings. Or, rather, Glenn didn’t.

“I miss you, too, Glenn.”

Glenn let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“Hold on,” Henry continued, “What time is it there?”

“Just past midnight.”

“Midnight! Glenn, you should get some sleep. Are you stopping soon?”

“Well, I still have just under three hours till I get to Dallas.”

The panic was prevalent in Henry’s voice now. “Three hours?! Glenn, you’d better not fall asleep at the wheel!”

“I won’t, Henry, I’m used to driving all night long when I’m on tour.”

“I saw you in Faerun. You don’t function well off just a few hours of sleep. You’re not the young man you used to be anymore, Glenn.” 

Glenn’s jaw tightened. Not a moment later, Henry realized his mistake. 

“Shoot, Glenn,” he spluttered, “I didn’t mean since— You’re just not as young as you were when you first started touring— Not because of— I mean, just because you spent years in prison doesn’t mean—”

“Henry, if you don’t shut up, I’ll drive myself off this bridge,” Glenn stated matter-of-factly. 

“Right. Sorry.”

Glenn drove on without saying anything, dimly aware of a dull aching on the side of his face where the scar tissue was. 

He tried not to think about supermax much. At the time, it was easy to focus on getting out, to let time pass him by, since he couldn’t really keep track of the time passing him by anyway. But when he got out and realized he had gone from being the youngest of the dads to being the oldest, the reality of the situation slapped him in the face. Henry, Ron, Darryl… none of them had changed one bit. But Glenn had lost an eye. He had grey hairs. His favorite leather jacket didn’t fit over his left arm anymore. 

And Nick… 

“Glenn?” Henry’s voice snapped Glenn back to reality. He didn’t really remember the last fifteen seconds of driving. Yikes. 

“Hm?”

“Oh good,” Henry breathed, “For a second there I was afraid you’d actually driven yourself off that bridge.”

“Nah, I’m here,” Glenn said. Sometimes it was annoying how much Henry worried about him. Sometimes it was… nice. He found himself missing Faerun, when Henry wasn’t distracted by Mercedes, his job… when it was just them and the other dads, on a quest together to rescue their sons and return home. 

When Henry would stay up all night with him, taking the occasional hit off his joint. 

When Henry would doze off on Glenn’s shoulder in the back of the minivan. 

When Henry would make eye contact with him in the middle of combat, fire in his gaze, and nod resolutely—putting all his trust in Glenn’s next move. 

“You’re still planning to be home for Christmas, right?” Henry asked. 

“Yeah,” Glenn responded, his voice a bit thicker with emotion. “I planned the whole tour so I could be home for Christmas.”

“When will you get back? I can help with the surprise-planning for Nick!”

“Well, the last concert is the 23rd in Seattle, so—”

“Wait. December 23rd?”

“Yeah?”

“Glenn! How the heck do you expect to get home on time for Christmas?! Seattle is what, a day’s drive from here?”

“Eighteen hours.” 

“Eighteen hours?!”

“Relax, Henry,” Glenn chuckled, “I can do it. I like driving.” 

“Yeah, but eighteen hours straight all by yourself? And are you going to start driving right after the Seattle show like you did tonight?!”

“No, I’m not a complete idiot,” Glenn said, defensively, “I’ll get some sleep after the show. Then I’ll stock up on Monster drinks and snacks and start driving the morning of the 24th. I’ll be home by Christmas morning, easy.”

“That is not easy, Glenn. And you’ll be exhausted, if you make it home without falling asleep at the wheel first. You won’t be able to enjoy Christmas with Nick.”

“Henry, I don’t know what you want me to do here. The venues are all booked. I can’t back out or change my schedule now.” 

“You couldn’t end the tour any closer to San Dimas?”

“Sometimes things don’t work out that way. Listen, I had to do a lot of finessing to make sure I’d still be touring long enough to earn a significant paycheck by the end of it and be able to spend Christmas with my son. I know what I’m doing, okay? You’ve gotta fucking trust me, man. I’m not missing Christmas.”

There was a beat of silence. 

“Alright. I trust you, Glenn. What can I do to help?”

“Nick’s expecting to spend this Christmas with your family again. Just have him sleep over there Christmas Eve, and I can come by Christmas morning.”

“Okay, we can do that. You’ll be coming back to our house for Christmas dinner, right?”

“What? I’m getting there in the morning, Henry. Keep up.”

“No, yeah, I just mean… You’ll be wanting to spend Christmas morning just you and Nick, right? At your place?”

Glenn didn’t know how to respond to that. Did Henry not want him over for Christmas morning? His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. 

“Sure, we can do that. I didn’t mean to intrude on the Oak-Garcia family traditions.”

“Huh? Oh, no, Glenn! That’s not what I meant! I just thought you’d want to spend Christmas morning with your son, one on one. I thought you Close boys would have your own traditions.”

“I haven’t been home for Christmas in eight years. Nick and I don’t really have any traditions beyond talking on the phone for a couple hours Christmas day.”

Glenn could feel Henry’s pity from 1,400 miles away. It made his skin crawl. 

“Then you can both spend Christmas morning with the Oak-Garcias,” Henry said definitively, and Glenn was grateful he didn’t dwell on pity for too long. “We loved having Nick last year, and we’d love to have both of you this year.” 

“Thanks, Henry,” Glenn said awkwardly. He was trying to express gratitude for others more often these days. 

“No need to thank me, Glenn. I’d love to spend Christmas with you.”

Warmth spread across Glenn’s chest. 

“I don’t want to leave you driving alone, but I really need to head to bed if I’m going to be able to get up for my morning yoga before work.”

“Hey, no problem.”

“Promise me you’ll pull over if you start falling asleep?”

Glenn chuckled. “Yeah, Henry. I promise. Though I had an energy shot before leaving Tulsa, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Glenn,” Henry almost whined, “Those things are so bad for you!”

“Sorry, Dad.” 

“I’m disappointed.” 

“Ouch.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Oh, neither am I. That cut straight through my heart. I’ll never be the same.”

Henry breathed out a chuckle. Glenn found that he missed the sound more than he realized. 

“Text me when you arrive in Dallas, okay?”

“Both you and Nick asked me to do that. Do you really think I’m going to pass out on less than a five hour drive?”

“This may be hard for you to believe, Glenn, but maybe Nick and I asked you to text us because we both care about you and want to wake up to a reassuring message that you’re safe.”

The warmth in Glenn’s chest grew. 

“Okay, fine,” he said, somewhat flustered, “I’ll text you.”

“Good,” Henry said, “Get some sleep once you arrive.”

“Yes, Dad.” 

“I miss you, Glenn.”

Glenn paused. 

“I miss you, too, Henry.”

Henry paused. 

“Okie dokie. Goodnight, Glenn.”

“Goodnight, Henry.”

Henry stayed on the line. Glenn glanced from the road to the dashboard screen. And back to the road. And back to the screen. And back to the road. And back to the screen. Why wasn’t Henry hanging up?

“Glenn?”

Glenn didn’t know why he felt nervous all of a sudden. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Another pause. Since when was Henry at a loss for words? 

“I’m really looking forward to Christmas,” Henry said softly.

Something in his voice told Glenn there was something deeper behind those words, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was. 

“Me, too. You know me, fuckin’ love Christmas.” 

Henry’s laugh enveloped Glenn’s chest.

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“You gonna hang up now?”

“If you’re sick of me, you could hang up, too, you know.”

“Yeah. I know I could.”

Silence. The air felt thick with words left unsaid. 

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Henry.”

“You will?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you after the show.”

“Okay. I like that plan.” Glenn could hear the smile in Henry’s voice. 

“Now go to sleep so you aren’t cranky when I talk to you.”

Henry laughed again, and Glenn tried to memorize the sound.

“Okay, okay. Goodnight, Glenn.”

“Night, Henry.”

The call ended. Glenn breathed in and out, once, slowly. Then he smiled. 

75 MPH

Finally. Texas. 

Glenn pressed on the accelerator.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this will be the most emo chapter, but uh I make no promises :') Glenn's just a sad dad doin his best
> 
> Update: I lied next chapter's a whirlwind sorry gang


End file.
